AF_1_22, 2022

digital print on cotton canvas, 145x100 cm

Text written for Off Water I at Gr_Und, November 2021, Berlin & Off Water II at Sainte Anne Gallery, April 2022, Paris

The immeasurable scale of the space-time in which we evolve requires us to permanently adjust the distance to that which surrounds us – in order to measure the scope of our impacts, the potential for actions, their possible failure and the extent of the dynamics that shape the "habitable". 

Water as a major component of our terrestrial system, from its oceanic surfaces to the fauna and flora, structures our relations. 

Off Water implies changes of state according to metabolic processes. These metamorphoses allow for hybridization and initiate upheaval. The artists of the exhibition deploy spaces that host the meeting of forms and affects. To leave the water implies a movement. Metaphorically, "to be out of the water" invites us to take a time out. The exhibition is composed as a territory through which the works draw the cartography of another possible space-time – hinting at that which is bigger than us, while allowing proximities and a reversal of scale.

scales, leather pieces of horse saddles 

Text written for "Interfaces, or those who caress the surface", Interface, June 2021, Berlin

Where abscissa and ordinate axes meet, there are points of contact. From these landmarks, territories are created that continually communicate, interpenetrate and move away from each other. We approach these spaces, by creating zones punctuated by our meetings and exchanges. These places where worlds brush against each other are infrathin 1 interfaces, membranes which embrace our interconnections.

First, there is the world’s vast space. From its maritime vibrations to the rhythm of the swell on its surface. There are telluric expanses pierced by roots and architectural perspectives. Within them, human and non-human skins deploy bodily and sensual conversations. The beauty of the notion of interface is that it proposes to reconsider the artwork as a surface accessible from its positive and negative sides. It opens up a space which escapes planarity, which draws its potentialities from a depth of field. As interfaces, artworks open worlds. Acting both as a screen and as a meeting place, they offer spaces of creation, invite us to penetrate and animate them with our interactions.

The idea of a permeability of interfaces is the key to this exhibition. The artists presented create spaces allowing for passages, for encounters. Their works call for a haptic experience.

Which is the surface, then, that caresses that of the other?

Within the exhibition space, itself an interface, the artists offer multiple approaches to this notion of permeability. When two hands move towards the surface of a plane, the skin itself becomes the surface through which the conversation with the world can take place. A dialectic thus opens, from the inner space towards an evoked place. The works build structures and create spaces of circulation and intimacy that resist us as much as they invite us in. In some, surfaces can be passed through in a vibratory and organic initiation. The artists stretch the plane of the exhibition towards an else-where that envelops us from the distant elsewhere in which it resides. The permeability of the presented surfaces allows us to envision that which, however infinitely distant, makes a step towards us. The interface can thus be seen as a potential for territorialization. The artists create immanent planes acting both as relics and potential futures, and these fragments scattered throughout the exhibition promise metamorphoses. The works gathered in this interior/exterior space formulate and offer access to intuitions which emerged from an embrace with the « surface’s deep essence »2.

The exhibition proposes to envisage the depth of surfaces which we thought were impermeable. The artists reveal what lies beyond the surface of the works. Yet to caress the surface, one must be there, and stand prepared for an encounter. In order to open fundamental conversations and invite empathy towards species and worlds.

1 Marcel Duchamp

2 三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio

AF_1_22, 2022

digital print on cotton canvas, 145x100 cm

Text written for Off Water I at Gr_Und, November 2021, Berlin & Off Water II at Sainte Anne Gallery, April 2022, Paris

The immeasurable scale of the space-time in which we evolve requires us to permanently adjust the distance to that which surrounds us – in order to measure the scope of our impacts, the potential for actions, their possible failure and the extent of the dynamics that shape the "habitable". 

Water as a major component of our terrestrial system, from its oceanic surfaces to the fauna and flora, structures our relations. 

Off Water implies changes of state according to metabolic processes. These metamorphoses allow for hybridization and initiate upheaval. The artists of the exhibition deploy spaces that host the meeting of forms and affects. To leave the water implies a movement. Metaphorically, "to be out of the water" invites us to take a time out. The exhibition is composed as a territory through which the works draw the cartography of another possible space-time – hinting at that which is bigger than us, while allowing proximities and a reversal of scale.

scales, leather pieces of horse saddles 

Text written for "Interfaces, or those who caress the surface", Interface, June 2021, Berlin

Where abscissa and ordinate axes meet, there are points of contact. From these landmarks, territories are created that continually communicate, interpenetrate and move away from each other. We approach these spaces, by creating zones punctuated by our meetings and exchanges. These places where worlds brush against each other are infrathin 1 interfaces, membranes which embrace our interconnections.

First, there is the world’s vast space. From its maritime vibrations to the rhythm of the swell on its surface. There are telluric expanses pierced by roots and architectural perspectives. Within them, human and non-human skins deploy bodily and sensual conversations. The beauty of the notion of interface is that it proposes to reconsider the artwork as a surface accessible from its positive and negative sides. It opens up a space which escapes planarity, which draws its potentialities from a depth of field. As interfaces, artworks open worlds. Acting both as a screen and as a meeting place, they offer spaces of creation, invite us to penetrate and animate them with our interactions.

The idea of a permeability of interfaces is the key to this exhibition. The artists presented create spaces allowing for passages, for encounters. Their works call for a haptic experience.

Which is the surface, then, that caresses that of the other?

Within the exhibition space, itself an interface, the artists offer multiple approaches to this notion of permeability. When two hands move towards the surface of a plane, the skin itself becomes the surface through which the conversation with the world can take place. A dialectic thus opens, from the inner space towards an evoked place. The works build structures and create spaces of circulation and intimacy that resist us as much as they invite us in. In some, surfaces can be passed through in a vibratory and organic initiation. The artists stretch the plane of the exhibition towards an else-where that envelops us from the distant elsewhere in which it resides. The permeability of the presented surfaces allows us to envision that which, however infinitely distant, makes a step towards us. The interface can thus be seen as a potential for territorialization. The artists create immanent planes acting both as relics and potential futures, and these fragments scattered throughout the exhibition promise metamorphoses. The works gathered in this interior/exterior space formulate and offer access to intuitions which emerged from an embrace with the « surface’s deep essence »2.

The exhibition proposes to envisage the depth of surfaces which we thought were impermeable. The artists reveal what lies beyond the surface of the works. Yet to caress the surface, one must be there, and stand prepared for an encounter. In order to open fundamental conversations and invite empathy towards species and worlds.

1 Marcel Duchamp

2 三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio